Invading Syria Is Still A Terrible Idea

Surprise! Max Boot wants a new war. He claims that "in Syria there is a great danger that America’s hesitancy to get involved on the rebel side has ceded the momentum to jihadist suicide bombers." Issandr El Amrani counters:

T]he case against intervention in Syria is not about how violent the conflict would get. It is about not getting involved about something that will be inevitable violent and bloody and could be further complicated by intervention.

Dropping U.S. troops into Syria would accomplish two things: 1. ensure the demise of the Assad regime; 2. ensure the rise of an anti-American insurgency. We saw this in Afghanistan and we saw it in Iraq. Any intervention of a size sufficient to provide country-wide security in Syria after the Assad regime falls is going to provoke a backlash.

Boot doesn’t specify what he thinks U.S. policy should be, except that there should be more involvement of some kind. Naturally, there is no mention of possible costs to the U.S. or what American interest would be served by greater involvement.

The pace of [Free Syrian Army] victories is simply shocking, even for those of us who have been arguing that the Assad regime is far weaker than it appears. The FSA is close to fully encircling Damascus, and the regime is rapidly losing territory elsewhere. Without a drastic change in strategy, Assad could find himself completely surrounded in short order.